Mr. Speaker, meegwetch to my colleague from Winnipeg Centre. That was a heartfelt and difficult speech to make, I have no doubt. All of us who are not indigenous but wish to stand in solidarity with the indigenous peoples of this nation, as I feel as a member of Parliament, are on the horns of the dilemma of celebrating Canada 150, because I have so many pins and flags, and recognizing that it is 150 years of colonization, oppression, and as the member previously mentioned, theft. I understand the anger.

I would love to see us be able to get rid of the Indian Act in the 41st Parliament. When I discuss this with people who are more knowledgeable, they say there are certain nations that do not want to get rid of it; there are inconsistent positions.

I want to know what the member for Winnipeg Centre suggests this Parliament do to make the historical difference, to turn the page and begin the path to real justice, truth, and reconciliation.

Mr. Speaker, the 150th anniversary of this nation should be a year of celebration, because nation building is about people. If we do not lift people up, if we always tell them they are poor, they are hungry, if we say they are ignorant, if we tell them they have no hope in the future, what do they do? They commit suicide. They do not reach their full potential. In this case, what I am hoping for, what I would like to see, is the birthright returned to the indigenous people of this land.

In the beginning, it really was not Canada's right to take that birthright and define who is an indigenous person, but it did so. In this case, the Senate amendment brings us to a time when it is no longer Canada that is deciding, it is the registrar in a way that will determine if someone can prove they have an indigenous ancestry.

Who knows how many indigenous people there are in this country? The indigenous nations will be much stronger for it if they are there working together, because we have been divided so long. This would be a great gift for me, returning that birthright.

Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member from Winnipeg for his tremendous speech. Once again, he has talked about issues that are so relevant to so many people, not only in our city that we share but across Canada. There is simply so much history we cannot be proud of, beginning with Canada's relationship with indigenous people, the royal proclamation.

Our first policy toward first nations people was to Christianize. Part of the Government of Canada's policy was to make indigenous peoples Christian. From there, civilization became the policy objective, to drive the native out of the native person by any means possible. Assimilation, of course, was to make all indigenous people not indigenous, to make them Canadian. From there spawned the Indian Act, which still governs the way we deal with first nations people today, including what we are discussing today and into the future, Bill S-3.

Does the hon. member foresee a time in our lifetime, in our children's lifetime, when we will no longer have an Indian Act in our country?

Mr. Speaker, in the last Parliament there was an act passed for a Dakota First Nation and self-government. It was given 52 self-governing areas that it could legislate as it deemed it had the competence to do so as it worked toward it. It was legislated here in this Parliament. It moved beyond the Indian Act.

For me, the Indian Act is not really the problem, because there are first nations that can be successful sometimes in the Indian Act. We have seen great leadership from Chief Clarence Louie, a very great man, of the Osoyoos in B.C. The problem is that we are often divided among ourselves, and we do not share capacity among ourselves. One community might have great capacity in education, but it does not share it with another community. Another community might have great capacity in water treatment, but it does not share it with other communities. We fight among ourselves instead of sharing our human resources to make our communities better.

Order. I believe the hon. parliamentary secretary may have begun his remarks for the adjournment proceedings. It is possible; it is merely an opinion.

I see the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre on his feet. The hon. member has spoken to the question before the House at this stage of the bill, so he really has used up his time for this particular stage of the bill before the House.

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak to this bill but doubt very much that I will use a full 10-minute or 20-minute slot. I realize that debate is on the verge of collapsing. I only wish to say more than I was able to say earlier in questions and comments.

It is lamentable that we approach something as critical as the injustices, embedded racism, and deep discriminatory aspects of the Indian Act in an attempt to deal with a deadline for one court case. I think it is unfortunate that the bill began its course in the Senate and has come to us with an important amendment that is not supported by the government but which to many of us on this side of the House, and certainly I think to some others on the Liberal benches, is the only thing that makes it possible to vote for the bill. The amendments that come from the other place would ensure that all gender discriminatory aspects have been removed. It is only through the elimination of the gender discriminatory aspects that one could imagine voting, at least on this side of the House, for the legislation.

I recognize that the policy downsides for the government are the vast unknowns and how many people would then become status Indians within the meaning of the Indian Act and whether there would be knock-on effects and unintended consequences. This is a difficult place for parliamentarians to find themselves.

As we deal with this bill, I remind us all, only at second reading, normally it would be a bill on its way to committee. However, as we heard from members of the committee, particularly the member for Peace River—Westlock, they cannot say how they will vote on this bill until the committee finishes its work. Therefore, we find ourselves in a doubly, perhaps triply, awkward space.

As a parliamentarian, I try to stay on top of all my files. However, Bill S-3 is one that I find not ready for vote in this place. It is going to committee, but I very much fear that positions are already entrenched. The government does not want to approve the amendments that came forward from the Senate. Those amendments are the only things that actually eliminate all the discriminatory aspects of who can inherit the status of their parents, grandparents, and so on. It is certainly an appalling situation that we live under this act, where it is people outside of indigenous communities who decide who is indigenous and who is not. Therefore, the vast Gordian knot of Bill S-3 will not be fixed in this second reading debate tonight.

Given time pressures to get this through by July 3, I doubt very much that it can be fixed at the committee that will now study it before it comes back to this place at report stage. I just want to register, as strongly as I can, a plea that we not treat this as something to deal with using a quick fix for a specific problem but that as much as possible, we open our minds to the bigger question of how we, in 2017, 150 years from Confederation, commit to striking down the oppressive colonial discriminatory act on which South Africa's apartheid was based. We all know this.

It is an appalling situation that our friend from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou identified. He identified that under the Indian Act, the minister could decide to nullify his personal will and bequest to his family. It is appalling that in 2017, this is still the law of the land, and we are dealing with one piece of it.

I would urge the committee if it can, and the minister and the government if they possibly can, to use this opportunity to signal that we want to get outside, beyond, and out from under this discriminatory piece of legislation. It will be way beyond the mandate of amendments to this bill to actually fix the Indian Act. I know that. However, can we make some bigger commitments to get out from under a racist and discriminatory piece of legislation before the end of the 41st Parliament? If we just push it down the road to another parliament, it will not get rid of it either. There will always be an excuse for why we are not ready.

As the member for Winnipeg Centre asked, how long does a man have to wait for justice? How long does a woman have to wait for justice? How long do first nations children have to wait for equal funding under a law, which they have already been promised? It has been far too long. When I see the calls from Idle No More for July 1 to be about unsettling, I sympathize so deeply with that and understand it, but if anything has defined the response of indigenous peoples on this continent to cultural genocide, abuse, and oppression, it is patience. It is such a deeply moving degree of tolerance and patience for the oppression from settler society.

I cannot add much to the Bill S-3 debate. I cannot vote for Bill S-3 unless it includes the amendments that the other place sent us that create a situation where there will not be gender discrimination, but it is within the fabric of a bill that is entirely about racial discrimination. Therefore, I urge us to do something better and something more with every opportunity that comes our way.

Mr. Speaker, I think the member was quoting “Equality is actually the law”, which Dr. Palmater told the commons committee. She said, “The fact that the government or any committee would be wondering or considering delaying equality for one more day shows exactly how ingrained sexism is in this country—and for Indigenous women, racism.” I do not quote Dr. Palmater lightly. I know she does not like me very much online. She is one of my great critics and I appreciate that criticism, especially of the way I speak Cree. It is not great Cree.

This is such a difficult thing. I was speaking with my colleague, the member for Spadina—Fort York. We are talking about INAC itself and how the time has come to consider a new department in which we can build trust, to create a new department that does not deal with the Indian Act but with the way we want things to be, so that we start winding down Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and create a new culture in this new department where trust and partnerships can be had with the indigenous peoples of this land to figure out how we want to move forward. It is not that people in INAC are bad people. Sometimes good people do bad things. Nonetheless, perhaps the time has come to look for a different vision for this department.

Mr. Speaker, I began my speech without acknowledging that we are on the territory of Algonquin peoples, unceded and sovereign. It is a very difficult thing. I agree that I was slightly paraphrasing Dr. Palmater, but her testimony made it clear that we are to be within the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as we were supposed to be as it was one of the commitments going forward into the new Liberal government, although I am sure the justice lawyers are advising that there are all kinds of problems.

I mentioned in one of my questions and comments earlier tonight that I am enormously excited and pleased that the new government in British Columbia, the New Democrats and the Green Party, will be completely committed to operating under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as legal requirements of the new B.C. government. That will help, I think, the federal level and in other jurisdictions to see how it is done.

However, we should be thinking in the ways the member for Winnipeg Centre suggested, perhaps not exactly in those words and not exactly that solution, but all of the advice that has come to us from experts, scholars, and the leadership in indigenous communities is that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples needs to guide us, which would mean that the Indian Act is completely incompatible with those recognitions of rights. That means we have to be prepared to take some very large steps. Of course, nothing we do as non-indigenous people can be done in this area without leadership from the indigenous leadership, first nations, Inuit, and Métis.

Mr. Speaker, as a fellow British Columbian, I have a question for the hon. member. Earlier I raised the question with the minister directly about the issue of consultation.

I have met with first nations chiefs in northern B.C. They talked about their desires and their dissatisfaction that the government moved forward the moratorium on tanker traffic off the coast of British Columbia without any consultation whatsoever. I know the member would like to see that moratorium go forward, because she believes it is the proper way to go.

First, does the member think it is appropriate for the government to move forward with something like that without proper consultation?

Second, does she have any thoughts about the future of consultations and whether the current government is doing all it can do to ensure those consultations are thorough?

Mr. Speaker, I certainly believe it is appropriate to move forward with a northern British Columbia coastal tanker ban. It is very consistent with the territory and the waters surrounding particularly Gwaii Haanas, Haida Gwaii. The council of the Haida Nation has been very clear in its sovereign authority that it does not want oil tanker traffic along its coasts.

The member's question was specifically to consultation. In the context of Bill S-3, it was put best by Professor Palmater, when she said, “There is simply no legal mechanism by which to consult out of gender equality.” Some topics are open to consultation. Matters of rights, of constitutionally protected rights, of interpretation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples are less open to consultation than other decisions.

Changing the Indian Act, for instance, will be a subject of massive complications.

The difficulty with consultation as we experience is it depends on the topic. The experience first nations have had with consultations for a very long time has been that once a government has made up its mind what it wants to do, it then comes and consults as a formulaic matter, so it can put a check mark and tick a box saying there were consultations. That is not real consultation. We all have a long way to go at all levels of government with respect to genuine consultation.

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up a comment made by my colleague on the government side, the member for Spadina—Fort York. He said that he and the government felt uncomfortable proceeding with the amendments proposed by the Senate because there was not unanimity. It was not a slip of the tongue. He used that phrase repeatedly in his comments, saying that it was imprudent to move forward until we had unanimity.

Would my hon. colleague comment on whether she thinks we require legislative unanimity in this case to move forward on these amendments from the Senate, or does she feel comfortable and confident moving forward with the Senate amendments to take out the gender inequity in the Indian Act now? We obviously have the democratic expression of the House and clearly a majority of the Senate, albeit not unanimous?

Mr. Speaker, I have no difficulty going forward with the Senate amendments as written. I also recognize there could be, and there likely will be, unintended consequences, knock-on effects and policy results that are awkward, difficult and will pose challenges to the department.

Therefore, our job should be to eliminate gender discrimination and move forward with the Senate amendments, while we try to identify, as much as is possible, what problems that change will cause, for instance, in the numbers of people who would then qualify, and whether there are certain communities where the percentage of people who turn out to vote in certain nations is a requirement. That is a very odd requirement, but if we suddenly quadrupled the number of people in the community and it needs a 25% turnout for the election to be considered valid, that is a problem, if getting rid of gender discrimination increases dramatically the numbers of people in that community. The solution to me is not to say we must continue with discrimination based on gender, but to say we better revisit those agreements that create those unfairnesses, which will create problems down the road.

As much as possible, we should do the right thing and deal with unintended consequences. We should not do not decide to do the wrong thing because we cannot properly imagine all the consequences of our decision.

Mr. Speaker, change is always hard. Many of our chiefs are honourable people who really want to see the best for their communities. I travelled 900 kilometres across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and I went to 41 first nations communities.

My mission statement, when I became a member of Parliament, was to give voice to those who are not heard. In this case, women are not often heard in our communities, so it really has been my mission to give them their voice, to make sure they are heard in this chamber, to make sure that everyone is heard. I tell the chiefs they also must give voice to those who are not heard, they are cousins to their brothers and sisters, because they are asking it of them and the ancestors are asking it of them.

Mr. Speaker, the conversations we need to have as Canadians about what truth and reconciliation really means are beginning tonight in this place, although they really began with the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The conversations are difficult, but we do need to start them. As parliamentarians we can start by asking how soon we can get rid of the Indian Act, and how can we do it. We cannot do it without the support and guidance of the communities and the citizens most impacted, which are of course indigenous communities. The day is coming soon when we will take action.